Blood Ties

Chapter 9 Continued: Convoluted Compulsions

It was well past dawn, the little escapades of the early morning had taken Goliath's remaining hours of sleep away. That impudent girl had stolen his few precious hours of sleep. He felt so enraged by her, no that wasn't quite the right was to describe it. She'd hit a nerve. The annoyance she produced left an ache between his shoulder blades, the tension his body felt was the residual lingering effect of having been in her presence. He scoffed at the thought. No, she'd been in his presence. The presence of a leader, yet she mocked him. Her eyes followed him with amusement as if observing an angry child instead of fearing a great man.

She must be verifiably insane. Goliath had seen her in the woods, seen her for what she was a Maji. One of privilege no doubt, judging by her crass and entitled demeanor. Here he stood. Fingers tugging the short jet-black hair atop his head, his muscled figure struggling to relax against the mere idea of his predicament as if it were a physical force holding him back. I know your secret she had said.

She wasn't the only one using magic in the woods, but had she seen him? Is that what she knew, that he had a little magic of his own? The leader of barbarous, a city that appraised synthetics over magic, viewing magic as an utter abomination. Goliath did not enjoy being toyed with. Indeed he was sure that he'd never actually been toyed with before... this girl. It became apparent to him slowly between the thundering pulses of pain between his temples that he could not oust her without outing himself.

Even if she had not seen him high in the trees, he could not be sure that is not what she meant. Mutual friendship must be struck the only way to gain in this was to forge an alliance built of necessity. Goliath wanted his justice, for the wrongs that had been placed on the people within his city. He had to find out why Trisa thought she was here, what purpose she believed she served. No doubt it was a misguided one. There was always a puppeteer trying to manipulate the youths of the Seven Kingdoms. Pull their strings, with amoral veracity based on self-indulgent ethics.

Politics is a nasty thing on its own now add the ideals of the wrong men, and you have, well, politics. Actually, in the end, it depends on which side of the argument you're on if you're on the side that benefits than you believe yourself on the right and just side of things. For such things as coexistence, there is no black or white. Only gray, which is why everything is so hard to balance.

The truth the kingdoms were, no doubt, cleverly hiding was the killings of half- breeds. It is the archaic belief of the kingdoms that the purity of magic, should maintain the balance of the Kingdoms. Interbreeding though not publicly prohibited is privately punished. It's surprising to think that an entire continent of people don't realize their right to love and marry outside their kingdom is entirely restricted. Oh, the rulers of the Kingdoms are clever.

To start, they created a social stigma around the idea of marriage outside one's kingdom, with the belief that the resulting offspring would likely end up "barbaric," which in the kingdoms is almost the equivalent of an invalid. No power, no craft, and therefore no welfare. What the Kingdoms ruling class hid was the fact that most interbred offspring are likely to inherit both strains of magic. If your mother was a Fae and your father a shifter, then bam you'd be a shifting holder of light. The question Goliath always asked his mother, as a child was, "Why hide it, is it not wonderful to be able to contribute many great things?"